101 Greats of European Basketball

Family matters
For the only time in these 101 chapters of the
great players of the past, a name gets repeated:
Jiri Zidek. I will not be writing about
the same player twice, but rather about a
father and son who carry that same name.
Jiri Zidek Sr. was a great player in Czechoslovakia
and one of the best big men in Europe during the
1960s and 1970s.
On April 17, 1969, his team Slavia Prague defeated
Dinamo Tbilisi in the Cup Champions Cup final, 80-74.
Zidek scored 15 points. Exactly 30 years later, to the
week, his son Jiri Zidek Jr. won the EuroLeague title
with Zalgiris Kaunas by defeating Kinder Bologna, 82-
74. Zidek scored 12 points. If memory serves, it is the
only case ever in European basketball of a father and
son both winning international club trophies as players.
Debut against ... dad
The story of the Zideks has some more interesting
details. Following his father’s footsteps, young Jiri
grabbed the ball at five years old. His first coach was
Jindrich Zeman, well known because of his work with
young talents. When he turned 14, Zidek’s coach was
Rene Stepanek, who helped him improve his technique.
It was then that tragedy struck when Zidek’s mother
died. According to Zidek himself, that fact had a major
influence on his exclusive dedication to basketball and
school, where he was always the best student.
At 16 years old, Zidek already practiced with the
Sparta Prague senior team. His debut in that category
was against Slavia, coached by his father and where
his elder brother also played. In the last seconds, with
a tie on the scoreboard, young Jiri scored the decisive
basket to give the win to Sparta. For the media, it was
the perfect story: the son beats his father with a basket
in the last second.
Just when everything looked perfect, Jiri suffered a
back injury. He had to go to the United States to undergo
treatment. He stopped for six months and missed
the FIBA European Championship for Junior Men, but
his name was already on the lists of many teams and
scouts. Zidek got offers from several good universities,
but he chose UCLA because of a Slovakian family there
that his father knew. The Schultz family helped him a
lot to integrate into a new country. On the sports side,
however, things didn’t go well. He played little. UCLA
head coach Jim Harrick didn’t believe much in him. In
his first two seasons, Zidek’s numbers were quite discreet:
1.1 points in 1991-92, 2.4 in 1992-93.
In his third year at UCLA, things started to change.
Zidek’s effort and sacrifice in practice was rewarded
with a place among the starters in a game at the beginning
of the season. He responded with 16 points and 10
rebounds, and never left the starting five after that. He
finished that season with averages of 11.1 points and
7 rebounds in 28 games, but the best was yet to come.
NCAA and EuroLeague champion
During the 1994-95 season, his last at UCLA, Zidek
averaged 10.6 points and 5.4 rebounds. His team won
the NCAA title by beating the Arkansas Razorbacks 89-
79 in the final with Ed O’Bannon as the star (20 points,
17 rebounds). Zidek remembers the event at the Kingdome
in Seattle as something unbelievable: “It was an
incredible atmosphere: 20,000 people came to watch
the practices and 45,000 to the games.”
101 greats of european basketball
Jiri Zidek Jr.
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